[REVIEW] Epistory

 

Typing games seem to come in 2 different flavours: designed for kids and with a slight gimmick, or The Typing of the Dead. Not that style. Just… that game.

So what do you do if you want something to help improve your typing skills but doesn’t start with the very very basics that you mastered years ago because you’re an Internet denizen and also not 6 years old, and also that doesn’t involve zombies? Well, you turn to Epistory – Typing Chronicles, of course.

 
Epistory is a delightful indie game by Belgian developer Fishing Cactus, released in March 2016. It is, through and through, a typing game, but it’s the most charming and entertaining one I’ve ever encountered. The world is paper, folded and unfolding, a beautiful piece of art. And you are there, riding atop the back of a three-tailed fox (also made of paper), as you uncover a great story and beat back the onslaught of insects that want to destroy rather than create.

All by typing.

A CHALLENGE FOR YOUR FINGERS

 
The bugs that attack you are varied in design and speed, and are each marked with a word, which you have to type in order to defeat them. Sometimes the words are written in a particular colour, which corresponds to the element you need to switch you, um, typing power to in order to take down your enemies: red for fire, blue for ice, etc. So it’s not just a matter of quickly registering the words you need your fingers to dance across the keyboard for, but also the element you need to use, and let me tell you, switching back and forth between them in the thick of a boss battle that’s filled with oncoming mobs of insects gets tense.

I’d be lying if I said that I never died while playing this game. My typing speed is pretty damn good (I’m generally clocked at about 70 wpm), but Epistory got brutal on me more than once. The problem is that while I type quickly, I also tend to type while glancing down at the keyboard just as much as I look at the screen, to make sure my fingers are hitting the right keys. It’s one thing to make a typo while, say, writing a review like this. I can backspace and fix that one letter mistake and continue on. But in Epistory, making a mistake means needing to start the word over again, which costs precious time when you might not have any to spare.

 Epistory features adaptive difficulty, which is fantastic, since that means it can be played by people who are quick typists or slow ones. The game will figure out how you’re doing and adjust the enemy difficulty to match. So why did I die repeatedly in a few areas? I think it was the adaptive difficulty working against my particular typing style. The game likely was going, “Hey, this person can type like a mofo, and so should be able to handle this oncoming wave of insect enemies.” And I’m going, “Fuck fuck fuck, another damn typo, wait, hold on, I can’t register all the words coming at me and check my keyboard to make sure I’m hitting the right keys and not making so many typos, fuck!”

Not the game’s fault. I’ve always know that I type weirdly. I typically use 1 finger per hand, maybe 2, and don’t use Home Row or any of those methods. I guess it’s like a super-fast modified hunt-and-peck? I don’t know what you’d call it. But either way. I can do just fine on the overworld, and in most general battles with the bugs, but when it comes to boss mobs, I’m screwed more often than I’m not, and I often need a new retries before I can manage to move on.

Destroying something with your typing, be it bug or obstacle, brings up a sort of experience bar that slowly runs down. Destroy something else and it will go up, giving you more experience if you can destroy multiple things in quick succession. You can rack up ridiculous combos in boss battles with their large mobs of approaching enemies, or just a few experience points here and there when you break a rock or burn some bushes. Experience gets spent on upgrades and abilities, like the aforementioned elemental attacks, greater movement speed, etc.

THE WORLD UNFOLDING

 
As you progress through the game, typing your little heart out, you access more of the world, which unfolds before you and grows to give you access to more areas, more challenges, and more of the story. Because there is a story in Epistory, one that reveals itself little by little, and in the style of a fairy tale. It’s charming, captivating, and sometimes you get a little more of it by conquering dungeons and boss mobs, sometimes by burning down sharp thorn bushes, and sometimes by exploring every piece of the map to reveal a few new sentences that add greater context to your tale. Exploration is linear to a degree, in that you need to unlock certain abilities to access certain areas, but you can always go back and explore old areas at your leisure, and sometimes multiple areas unfold at the same time and there’s no wrong or right order in which to tackle them.

As for the art style in the game… Well, you can see for yourself how gorgeous it is.

 
All of the screenshots I’ve used in this review were taken by me, during my playthrough of the game, and aren’t PR screenshots specifically designed to look their best even if they might not be entirely representative of the general look of the game.

The sharp edges on the environment, the obvious tiling on the ground, it all works well when you consider that the world you’re moving around on is essentially origami, a piece of representative art that’s meant to invoke rather than be fully realistic. The polygonal aspect works so well for that style, while at the same time using realistic lighting effects to add depth and character. The whole time, I feel like I’m playing with an intricate and interactive diorama, and it’s beautiful, and I love it.

Epistory is far from just “yet another typing game.” It’s a unique experience that’s unlike anything I’d previously seen, and if I’m to be honest, I haven’t seen anything like it since, either. It stands on its own as a solid exploratory adventure, with the added bonus of improving your typing skills. The visuals, the music, the story that slowly reveals itself, the aspect of challenge, it’s all there. It’s a game I don’t hear talked about much, even by people who review and showcase indie games, and I think that’s a damn shame because Epistory deserves more attention. Despite being over 3 years old now, it has a timeless appeal, one that can captivate hearts and minds while providing a singular and good gaming experience.